


Raktabija

by anactoriatalksback



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hindu Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 15:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12844506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoriatalksback/pseuds/anactoriatalksback
Summary: A wee drabble about blood and responsibility. Also sausage.





	Raktabija

‘What’s for dinner?’

‘ _Blutwurst_ ’, says Hannibal. He places Will’s plate in front of him. ‘Paired with an Alsatian Riesling. Would you prefer beer, Will? I have lager.’

Will shrugs. He’s considering his plate. Slices of sausage are arranged in a neat spiral. Prim, almost, or it would be without the looming almost-blackness of the meat and its vegetal bay-leaf musk. An oily menacing –question-mark? No, a comma.

Eat, or be eaten.

‘Who was it?’, he asks.

‘Nobody you know’, says Hannibal.

Will accepts that. Hannibal seldom lies unless he deems it necessary, and _never_ prevaricates. Evasions, Will suspects, Hannibal thinks are…mean. Squalid. The mark of a shaking hand. A mind uncommitted, and incapable of full flower even if decided on a course.

That’s…five, then. Five people who have disappeared from their homes and reappeared as racks and rumps and thighs and breasts, as pate and bouillabaisse and gammon and steak. Five sons and wives and lovers, Will tells himself, and waits for his own reactions. Catalogues the long internal shrug, his polite indifference.

Hannibal probably cares more, Will thinks. Hannibal surely knows more about at least the external lives of every pig and fatted calf on his table. Every good butcher knows the precise provenance of his meat.

‘Is this the fifth?’, Will asks, looking at Hannibal.

Hannibal nods, spearing a mouthful of sausage. He doesn’t bother to pretend he doesn’t know what Will means, or that he doesn’t know the precise count.

Hannibal never prevaricates.

He’s watching Will. Watching Will watching Hannibal.

‘Is there a particular reaction you want from me, Will?’

‘Would you…manufacture it…for me, if there were?’

Hannibal shrugs. ‘That depends. Would you only value the reaction if it were sincere, or would you appreciate the effort, or the artistry, of a simulation?’

‘It’s the thought that counts’, says Will, and he can feel the softness of his smile.

‘Then I would try’, says Hannibal. ‘What would you like me to feign?’

Will shakes his head. ‘Don’t feign anything.’

Hannibal smiles. ‘What brought the number to mind?’

Will shrugs, chasing the thick dark ooze around his plate. ‘It’s my number too.’

‘Ah.’ Hannibal cuts another slice. ‘The five who are on your conscience since you suffer me to exist.’

‘They’re not on my conscience’, says Will with a grin that should probably, at least for form’s sake, contain a shade of rue.

Hannibal tips his glass to Will and takes a swallow of wine. Will watches his Adam’s apple bob.

‘You are giving me far too much authority, Will’, says Hannibal. ‘And – by extension – claiming too much of your own. You affect to hold these people’s lives in the palm of your hand.’

‘Or the edge of my knife’, says Will. One long horizontal slash. A hot, thick spray like the claret reduction they’d used for dinner last week. Bubbling, Viscous and intimate. Bathing in Hannibal. Saturated in Hannibal.

‘I am not’, says Hannibal, ‘the only killer you know, Will.’

Will’s eyes meet Hannibal’s. He watches the words ‘Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Francis Dolarhyde. Randall Tier’ form. Form and die.

Will, too, will not prevaricate.

‘No, you’re not’, he says. ’Blood..begets blood.’

Hannibal inclines his head. ‘In Hindu mythology, there is a demon called Raktabija – loosely translated as ‘blood-seed’. The demon had been given a boon: every time a drop of his blood touched the ground, a thousand more of him would spring up. He could not be defeated in battle – every time you scratched him, more of him would appear.’

‘I wouldn’t have been _exactly_ like you’, says Will, a little affronted.

Hannibal smiles. ‘What you would have been, Will…what you will be…will be yours and yours entirely. I cannot claim ownership of you. A midwife is not a mother.’

Will’s gaze falls. ‘So did they kill him?’

‘Yes’, says Hannibal. ‘The goddess Kali unfurled her tongue so that it covered the earth. She soaked up Raktabija’s blood before it hit the ground. And he died.’ He takes a sip of wine. ‘Kali is commonly depicted with her tongue out. The virtues of a thirst for blood.’

Will considers Hannibal. And then bends and licks the blood off his plate.

When he raises his head, he knows his mouth and chin are encrusted in purple-black gouts.

He lifts his glass to his lips.

‘Please, sir’, he says, ‘could I have some more?’

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I have been dragged into this fabulous baroque show by the lovely and talented @reserve. Blame her, basically.
> 
> Also, come yell with me on tumblr if you like. The handle I inhabit is [itsevidentvery](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/).


End file.
